THE FALL AND RISE OF THE BARWICK MAYPOLE 1978

Visitor Tabs

This is a documentary film showing the traditional taking down, re-painting and putting back up, of the maypole in the centre of Barwick village.

Opening Titles:
Leeds Cine Club
Movie Makers
present
the fall and rise of the barwick maypole

The film begins by zooming onto a map showing Barwick in Elmet, seven miles east of Leeds. On 4.55 pm Monday 27th March 1978 the 90 foot town maypole is being taken down in the traditional manner, as it is every three years. The pole man, elected by the Maypole Committee, ascends the pole, first up a ladder, and then without one. As a large crowd watches, he attaches the five ropes that allow for the long pole to be lowered to the ground. The volunteer helpers are kept supplied with free liquid refreshment, beer. The watching crowd grab the ropes to lower the pole. Using ladders to prop up the pole it is gradually lowered and two hundred of the crowd carry the pole away to a field.

On Tuesday 30th May 1978, the maypole, newly painted, is laid in a field where there is a gala attended by three thousand people. A large crowd, sat on a steep grass bank, watch as ceremonies are performed by the Mayoress and other dignitaries. Back in the town centre people are flocked outside the pubs waiting for the pole to be erected. A man digs a deep hole, cut into solid rock, for the pole to go into. At the gala prizes for the jazz competition are being given out, and decorations inspected. 10,000 people have come to Barwick for the day with the prospect of a free pint for all those who help to carry the pole and erect it. The pole is slowly erected using ropes and ladders. Finally the pole is in place and helpers fill up their glasses from a bucket. One of the villagers climbs up the pole to remove the ropes and then on to the top to spin the gilded fox. Having successfully got back down in one piece, the Morris Dancers break out in celebration.

This film was made by Leeds Movie Makers, a not-for-profit amateur film club whose primary aim is to encourage movie making in its many forms through workshops, practical sessions, and competitions. It is part of a collection of over 50 8mm films made by the LMM between 1974 and 1985 that was acquired by the Archive in 2009 and also included fiction film and animation, as well as footage from the Annual Lord Mayor’s Parade which the club was hired to film.

The recognisable piece of music at the end of the film is of course most familiar as the theme tune to the BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers, but is far from an incongruous choice here. Entitled ‘Barwick Green’, it was actually originally written as a maypole dance by Heckmondwike-born Arthur Wood in 1924. Wood was a self-taught composer who conducted West End orchestras including those at the Drury Lane Theatre Royal and the Shaftesbury Theatre in Camden.

This isn’t Barwick-in-Elmet’s only claim to fame, however, as this film shows. The village, seven miles east of Leeds, is home to one of the tallest maypoles in the country – standing over 80 feet tall at the junction of Main Street and The Cross and dominating the local skyline.

Maypoles & Maypole Dancing

In spite of the assertions made by the film’s narrator, the true origin of maypoles and maypole dancing remains an area of much debate. The notion that they are connected to pre-Christian fertility rites is, though, supported by the fact that maypoles have been traditionally found in areas where Germanic paganism was most prevalent. Along this line of thinking, the maypole represents a carved phallus that would be danced around by women in order to win favour with the gods and goddesses associated with childbirth and fruitfulness. Even though such conjecture has been reputed by various scholars, the maypole certainly developed these associations later on, and by the time of John Cleland’s 1748 erotic novel Fanny Hill the maypole had firmly become a phallic euphemism, even if this hadn’t been its original purpose.

An alternative theory states that the maypole reflected the pagan reverence for sacred trees. In Norse mythology, for example, the ‘world tree’ Yggdrasil connected the heavens and earth, and was thus treated with respect and veneration. On a more local level, in the Celtic kingdom of Elmet from which Barwick derives its suffix, the importance of trees had a more practical basis than the merely symbolic. The “Bright Oak” near Headingley was a conspicuous focal point of the forest of Loidis (later corrupted to the modern-day Leeds) and is believed to have served as a meeting place for the local court.

Another idea propounded by popular folklorists such as Wilhelm Mannhardt and James Frazer contends that the maypole was seen as being home to a spirit. The basis for such a contention appears to hark back to the Greek legend of Attis and Cybele. According to Catullus, Cybele - the goddess of flowers and fruitfulness - grieving over the death of Attis, brought him back to life in the form of an evergreen tree that was then decorated and worshipped. In this way the maypole’s connection with rebirth and spring was made all the more obvious.

The first record of a maypole in the British Isles is from the mid fourteenth century, made by Gryffydd ap Adda ap Dafydd who makes mention of a birch pole at Llanidloes, mid Wales. During the latter half of the century it appears to have been an established custom across southern England, and its popularity increased until Protestant disapproval of paganistic practice saw maypoles targeted under Edward VI. The maypole situated opposite the Church of St Andrew Undershaft in Aldgate, for example, is known to have been seized and destroyed in 1547 by puritan opponents. The custom then appears to have been reinstated under Mary I until further repression during the Long Parliament of Oliver Cromwell, before flourishing in the aftermath of the Restoration and becoming increasingly popular over the subsequent centuries. See also the Context for Birdwell Primary School May Queen 1958-1960

Maypole in Barwick-in-Elmet

The maypole ceremony in Barwick-in-Elmet is somewhat unusual in that it has traditionally taken place on Whit Tuesday rather than the more common Mayday festivities. Every three years, under the supervision of the Maypole Committee, Barwick has played host to a celebration involving a procession, morris dancing, a craft market and, as witnessed in the film, a fair amount of ritual imbibition.

Among the Committee’s tasks is the selection of the maypole climber, who would traditionally be charged with tying and loosening the ropes needed for the lowering and raising ceremonies. Entrusted with this duty in 1978 was Arthur Nicholls – possibly the most prolific maypole-climber in Barwick-in-Elmet’s history. After responding to a Yorkshire Post advert in 1960, Nicholls went on to “spin the fox” another six times in a career spanning eighteen years - his seventh and final climb shown in this film.

In previous times the Committee, along with the head forester at Parlington Park nearby, would also select the trees to be used for the maypole three years prior to the ceremony. The chosen trees (formerly of larch, now of Norwegian fir) would then be rendered, spliced and eventually painted at the local sawmill before being left in Hall Tower Field, from where the finished maypole is traditionally carried into the village.

Or at least that’s how it should be anyway. In both 1829 and 1907 the maypole was stolen from Hall Tower Field, only to be returned well in time for Whitsun. But it was a close-run thing in 1966, when the maypole was stolen only 3 days before its ceremonial raising by a group from the rival village of Aberford. It was clearly a matter of village honour, as a distraught Albert Warner, who lived on the Aberford road, decried – “as the town crier of the maypole raising, I shall never live this down. With the enemy at the gate, I let them pass unchallenged.” Nevertheless, after much searching the maypole was eventually discovered and made its triumphant return to Barwick on Whitsun morning, just in time for its triennial erection.

There was no such drama in 1978, however. Whilst it marked the end of Arthur Nicholls’ association with the maypole, it also established a new tradition for events in Barwick. For the first time the Maypole Queen was crowned by the Lady Mayoress of Leeds, a practice adhered to ever since. Only girls between the ages of 12 and 14 who had been resident in Barwick for at least four years were eligible for the title, with the winner determined by an electorate of local schoolchildren.

The mention in the film of King Edwin is a reference to Edwin of Northumbria, the Anglo-Saxon king who conquered the ancient kingdom of Elmet in the early seventh century. Elmet, like Ebrauc (later York), was a Celtic kingdom that survived late into the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Its boundaries are believed to have roughly correlated to the rivers Sheaf and Wharfe, adjoining Deira & Mercia to the North and with its western boundary near Craven. The Elmetian king Gwallog ap Llanog is evidenced in a poem by the sixth century Welsh bard Taliesin, as well as being mentioned in the Black Book of Carmarthen. It was his son, Ceredig, who was expelled by Edwin, precipitating the fall of Elmet and its incorporation into the burgeoning empire.

It seems unlikely that the Barwick maypole dates back as far as this pre-conquest era, and the methods associated with the custom have certainly been subject to a significant degree of alteration. Ropes and ladders were last used to raise the maypole in 1999, and have since been replaced by a crane, although it is still carried to and from Hall Tower Hill by villagers in accordance with the long-standing tradition. At the time of writing, the next raising ceremony set for May 2011; with Barwick looking set to welcome thousands of spectators for this most old-fashioned of spectacles.

References

Ronald Sutton, Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford (1996)